The Pearl King

by Sarah Painter

  Dylan returned to his phone, saying. ‘Retirement, right?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘You were after a wreath. Last week? Sorry we couldn’t help.’

  ‘That’s okay,’ Lydia said. ‘I got a bunch from M and S. This order is big, though. And I don’t need it until next month.’

  ‘How big?’

  ‘I don’t know, what can I get for five hundred?’

  Dylan perked up. ‘We’ve got lots of examples on our website. Browse the gallery there.’

  ‘I want to know what they smell like, though. What have you got that smells good? Really strong.’ Yep, flower-talk was not Lydia’s strong-suit.

  ‘Roses have a scent,’ Dylan indicated a bunch of yellow flowers in a bucket to her left.

  Lydia shook her head. ‘I need something stronger.’

  ‘Hang on,’ Dylan said, ‘I think we’ve got some Gardenia in the back.’

  The moment he disappeared through the door, Lydia leaned over the counter to get a closer look at the notebook. Figures, messages to ‘call Beth’ and a prosaic ‘to do’ list. Lydia took out her phone and flipped the pages, photographing each one. She registered that there were occasional name and address with order numbers and, sometimes, prices, but she didn’t try to read anything, just worked as quickly as she could.

  She had only done six when she heard Dylan return and she had to flip the pages over and stand back.

  Dylan was empty-handed. ‘We don’t have any out the back, but I’ll make a note to get some in, if you want to come back?’ He picked up a pen and hovered over the notebook. ‘Can I take your name?’

  ‘Shaw,’ Lydia said. ‘Rebecca Shaw.’ She gave him the number of one of her burner phones and thanked him.

  Back at her desk, Lydia went through the pictures. There weren’t many addresses, especially given the amount of income Jason had found. Lydia’s guess was that only telephone or in-person details were taken in this way and the rest were recorded by the online payment system used by the florist’s website.

  The addresses were all in affluent areas, which made sense until you stopped to wonder why folk would travel to Camberwell to order a bouquet of flowers when they lived on the other side of the river. Perhaps they were laundering money for JRB and part of the agreement involved sending flowers to JRB’s friends? Assuming JRB had any. Could shell corporations have friends?

  Lydia hated this type of investigation almost as much as she hated the background checks for corporations and recruitment agencies. It was so bloodless, so technical. Whether it was money laundering or tax evasion or insider trading, you could easily forget that there were real people suffering, somewhere along the line. And the people truly responsible were never the ones who got punished for it. At least, hardly ever.

  Lydia didn’t like to admit the other reason she was in a bad mood about it. The Crow Family had been involved in schemes not a million miles away from this kind of thing back in the day. Protection rackets, money laundering, and feathers-knew what else. It made her shudder. The Bad Old Days.

  On the final page she had managed to capture, there was only one address. It was surrounded with flowers and vines, like someone had been doodling while on the phone, but had decided to take a break from the comical robot which appeared on the other pages. The address was near Hampstead Heath. Lydia recognised it because it had been in the news for being one of the most expensive addresses in London. What really made Lydia’s heart race, though, was the name above the address. No first name or title, just the surname. Pearl.

  Next to the address, almost obliterated by the doodled foliage was a date and the word ‘paid’. Lydia went back to the florist’s accounts and found the most recent payments for three grand. The date matched.

  The houses in this part of London were not for ordinary mortals. The street that Lydia was driving down was known as billionaires’ row and the address she had been given was on a gated street with a private security guard in a small wooden cabin. Lydia pretended to consult the clipboard she had brought with some mocked-up paperwork to give him the address and explained that she was making a delivery on behalf of Jayne’s Floral Delights. She had hired a white van for the day and was hoping that the guard didn’t ask to look in the back, as it was entirely empty.

  ‘Where’s the usual guy?’

  ‘Sick bug,’ Lydia said.

  The road led to a row of detached mansions. Each had to be no more than five or ten years old, but they dripped with white columns, leaded windows, mullions and topiary and fountains, like miniature stately homes. They were all similar, clearly built by the same developer, but some were even larger than others. The address on Lydia’s phone led her the biggest of all. It had a carriage driveway which swept past the house, and neatly clipped box hedges enclosing an ornamental garden. The heavy wooden gates at the entrance swung inwards as Lydia approached and she could see security cameras on the gateposts pointing both outward and in toward the house. Lydia couldn’t see any signs of life, just large leaded windows reflecting the weak January light and an impressive doorway, flanked by white columns.

  As she drove around the curving driveway, the front door opened and a small girl with tangled blonde hair adorned with a plastic tiara, muddy jeans, and a checked shirt which reached her knees hopped down the steps and stood, watching.

  Lydia got out of the van, trying to smile in a non-threatening manner.

  ‘You’re not from the flower shop,’ the girl said, tilting her head. Her voice was surprisingly mature. It was the voice of a small child, but the intonation was more adult. It was unsettling.

  ‘I’m Lydia,’ Lydia said. ‘And I wanted a word with the head of the Pearl Family.’

  ‘You’re Lydia Crow,’ the girl said. ‘And you must mind your tone. Our king doesn’t meet with any bird that flutters by.’

  ‘I apologise,’ Lydia said. ‘May I meet with the king? I would very much like to make his acquaintance.’

  ‘Not his,’ the girl said. Baby lips pursed while she thought.

  After a moment she turned and opened the door fully, leading Lydia into a huge square entrance hall. Open doorways led off in all directions and a staircase led up to an open gallery which ran across three sides of the hall. The floor was shiny marble, which Lydia imagined came as standard in these homes. What was almost certainly not standard, was the tree growing up through the middle of the room. It had a twisted trunk which looked like several trunks plaited together and the spreading branches reached the gallery railing above, twisting and twining with the wooden railing of the gallery.

  Lydia followed the girl through an arched doorway which led to a set of stairs leading down. These stairs were less opulent than the main staircase, but the walls and thick carpet were immaculately clean and glowed with subtle mood lighting. It felt more like a five-star hotel than a private residence and there was the slightest scent of chlorine. ‘There’s a pool down here?’

  The girl didn’t answer.

  The stairs turned a corner and, at the bottom, there was a space with a console table, small armchair and two closed doors. One was plain oak or another hardwood, polished to a high shine to bring out the woodgrain, the other looked like nothing else in the house so far. It was lacquered black and embedded with hundreds of tiny pieces of mother-of-pearl, like the lid of a jewellery box. There was the faint thump of a bassline through the door, a sound which was suddenly amplified when the girl opened it.

  Lydia stepped into a room which could only be described one way, even if that way seemed faintly ridiculous in the twenty-first century. It was a throne room and the person lounging on the throne was both beautiful and sharp like a piece of broken glass. Music pulsed from hidden speakers, coloured lights danced, and throughout the large space, bodies were moving rhythmically. It was a small nightclub underneath a house, the mirrored walls making it difficult to assess its size.

  The girl tugged on Lydia’s arm until she bent down to the girl’s height. ‘You may approach,�
� her companion whispered, her breath hot in Lydia’s ear. ‘But you may not linger. Make your point quickly.’

  ‘The king,’ Lydia whispered back. ‘Are they a he or she or should I stick with ‘they’?"

  The child shot her look of confused offence. ‘You say ‘your majesty’.’

  ‘Of course,’ Lydia said, trying to look reassuringly contrite. The child was frowning, as if rethinking this introduction. Feeling as if she was taking part in a play and a hot sense of self-consciousness creeping up her neck, Lydia stepped forward toward the purple velvet armchair. It had an enormously tall back and shiny-black scrollwork on the frame, stylised and cartoonish like something out of a Disney film. The king wasn’t looking at Lydia, they were watching the dancers with half-closed eyes. One hand, draped across the arm rest twirled in lazy circles at the wrist, as if conducting the revelry through a drug-haze.

  Lydia didn’t know if she should bow or clear her throat or say ‘greetings, your majesty’ but it was a moot point as, suddenly, she didn’t feel as if she was able to do anything at all. A strange sense of being rooted to the spot, along with a sludgy feeling in her veins, like everything had just slowed down. She could hear her heartbeat in her ears, which seemed impossible given the loudness of the music, but there it was, thumping slowly, slower than she expected.

  The king was looking at her, now. Out of the corner of their eyes, their head very slightly tilted in her direction. She had never seen any person so beautiful before, Lydia realised. Not in real life. It was overwhelming. Somebody was at her side. It wasn’t the child who had led her into this place, it was an older girl. She could have been twelve or twenty, it was difficult to say with the elaborate face paint. A line of sparkling crystals curved along each cheekbone and she had a bright rainbow of eyeshadow and thick black eyelashes and liner. It ought to have looked ridiculous, but somehow (probably because she was young and very beautiful), it didn’t. ‘The king is too busy to see you today,’ the girl said. ‘You must follow me.’

  Lydia wanted to say that the king didn’t look all that busy, but she felt herself unrooted from the floor and had enough sense to follow the girl meekly, after bowing her head in what she hoped was a respectful manner in the direction of the throne.

  The teenager led her back up the stairs to the entrance hall. It was shadowed and dark, the enormous tree mysterious and vaguely menacing in the darkness. Lydia blinked, wondering if her eyes were taking time to adjust, the flashing lights from downstairs were still exploding in her vision. Then she realised that the elaborate window coverings had been drawn against the daylight.

  ‘Goodbye,’ Lydia said to the teenager who was already walking away. She didn’t reply. When Lydia turned back, wondering whether she could get away with a quick look around the rest of the house, she jumped in surprise. The small girl who, Lydia would have sworn couldn’t have beaten her upstairs without being seen, was standing at the front door, twisting a strand of blonde hair around her fingers while she waited.

  ‘You made me jump,’ Lydia said, hoping that acknowledging it out loud would ease her discomfort. It didn’t.

  Back outside, Lydia was surprised to find that night had fallen. The street lights were lit and the temperature had dropped another couple of degrees. If pushed she would have said she had been in the house for twenty minutes, tops, but her phone told her it had been closer to two hours.

  ‘You bored us today,’ the little girl said. Her voice was far older than her face. Or perhaps that was the confidence in her tone. ‘The king says that if you decide to visit again, you must bring two gifts. One to make up for today and one for the visit itself.’

  Lydia didn’t bother asking how the girl knew what the king thought, even though she hadn’t seen them converse. Instead she tried to make her voice deferential, which didn’t come naturally. ‘What sort of gift?’

  The girl shook her head. She inserted a finger into her mouth and tugged on the nail.

  ‘What does the king like?’

  The girl had already turned away, and was halfway through the open front door of the house.

  ‘Ah, come on,’ Lydia said. ‘Just a little hint. If you tell me what you like, I could bring you a gift, too.’

  The girl stopped. She turned slowly back to face Lydia. ‘Lydia Crow is offering me a gift of her own free will?’

  Lydia swallowed. What had she walked into? ‘Yes,’ she said. She thought quickly. ‘A gift that I choose, but given freely.’

  The girl nodded. ‘That is a very good offer and well put.’ She smiled and Lydia felt herself lean forward, wanting to be closer. That was the Pearl she supposed. The girl could have lifted her foot and Lydia would have kissed it.

  ‘I like colourful things. And glitter.’ The girl turned back and moved a few more steps. At the door, just when Lydia thought she was going inside, she looked back over her shoulder. ‘The king likes dead things.’

  Chapter Eleven

  Lydia tried to keep her pace even, not allow herself to speed up as she walked back to the van and got inside. She itched to move faster, to run, to fly. The sound of beating wings was deafening as she turned the key in the ignition. She forced herself to drive beneath the speed limit on the way home. She was too late to return the van for the daily rental rate and would have to deal with it the following morning. An irritation which barely registered above the pounding in her chest.

  Lydia’s heart rate didn’t slow down until she was safely behind the locked door of her flat. Jason was in his customary position on the sofa, laptop open. He looked up when she walked in and closed the lid immediately. ‘What happened? You were ages.’

  Lydia sat next to Jason and told him about the Pearls’ house, the strange girl and the king. She left her request until last. ‘They are big on gifts and the king won’t speak to me without a good one.’

  ‘I take it you’re not thinking of a bottle of wine,’ Jason said. ‘What about some money? You said Pearls like that.’

  Lydia sat next to Jason on the sofa. ‘You can say no,’ she began.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The kid said that the king likes dead things.’

  ‘Well that’s not creepy at all.’ Jason was trying to smile but it didn’t reach his eyes.

  Lydia touched his cold arm. ‘You don’t have to decide now, think about it. But you do fit the bill. And we know we can get you out of the flat, now.’

  ‘You need to find out what the Pearls are up to,’ Jason said, after a moment. ‘You think they’re working with JRB?’

  ‘Maybe. Or they might know something about them. If they’ve been messed around by JRB, they might consider an alliance with us. That would be pretty handy right about now.’

  ‘Since you pissed off the Silvers.’

  ‘Yes,’ Lydia said. ‘There is that. But it’s completely fine if you don’t want to do it. It’s a big ask.’

  ‘You think an alliance with the Pearls would be a good idea? For the Crows? For you?’ Jason wasn’t vibrating but he was looking slightly-more-dead than usual. He was always pale, but his face had a grey-ish pallor. ‘There could be safety in numbers.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Lydia leaned back, resting her head on the back of the sofa. ‘It just feels like the ground is pretty shaky at the moment. Like one more little mistake could snap the truce into pieces. And then feathers-knows what would happen.’

  ‘Maybe nothing,’ Jason said, hopefully. ‘Maybe it’s just all stories. Stuff from history and none of it matters any more. Maybe the truce isn’t needed anymore.’

  Lydia looked at him. ‘You believe that?’

  ‘Sadly, no.’ Jason leaned back next to Lydia, his body signalling defeat.

  ‘Me neither.’

  A couple of days later, Lydia was due at Charlie’s house for another training session but she called to put it off. His demands in that area had been increasing and it was harder and harder to keep control. Part of Lydia was elated that she wasn’t as powerless as she had always assumed, bu
t most of her was frightened by it. She didn’t like not knowing what was going to happen or what she might inadvertently reveal to Charlie. Every training session was an exhausting charade. ‘I’m not feeling well.’

  ‘Is that a fact?’

  ‘Stomach issues,’ Lydia said. ‘You don’t want the details. Trust me.’

  ‘That’s a shame.’ Charlie managed to make the phrase sound like a threat. ‘Feel better soon.’

  The light on Lydia’s answer machine was flashing and she listened to her messages. A prospective client left a number, but no details. She sounded angry and Lydia guessed it was another infidelity case. Not that it mattered. While juggling Charlie and Mr Smith, Lydia couldn’t see how she could effectively do her job. A fact which made her furious. And thirsty. She looked at the whisky and then forced herself to make a mug of coffee, instead.

  While she was in the kitchen, the phone rang and she let the machine pick it up.

  The voice was agitated and the sentences disjointed. The caller was speaking very fast, but Lydia recognised it as the man who had called a couple of weeks earlier. She crossed back into her office, teaspoon in hand to listen. ‘This is Ash. Uh, I’ve called before. Please call me back. I need help. They extended my hold and I know they mean well, but they can’t help. They’ve got a certain perspective. A medical perspective. I need someone to find out what’s really going on. I’m older than I…I’m not... I still don’t have the right…’ Then something unintelligible. ‘I can pay. Call me back.’

  Lydia looked at the blinking red light for a moment and then went back to make her coffee. She felt sorry for the man, but she had enough problems.

  Chapter Twelve

  Christmas Eve was always a big deal in the Crow Family and Henry had kept the traditions he had grown up with. Vikings always counted the new day as beginning when the sun went down on the old one, so Christmas officially began once darkness fell on Christmas Eve. That was when feasting and gift-opening and drinking began in earnest. Christmas Day was for visiting family but, in deference to her mother’s wishes and for Lydia’s general protection, they had ducked out of the Crow Family Christmas Day gathering, seeing Charlie on Boxing Day when he arrived in the suburbs, hungover and quiet, ready to watch sport with Henry while Lydia played with her new toys.